So we’re back after a week away, and are surprised to find that so much has happened — MGM is or isn’t for sale again! SAG is squabbling over elections! — in our absence.

Actually, we found more interesting goings-on in our vacation spot of choice, Iceland, where we wiled away some of these final days of August (and where we found that the locals party so hard they make a Sundance afterparty look like an AA meeting). Blame it on our blog-happy mindset, but there are a few interesting lessons that came to mind as we traveled through the at once remote and uber-cosmopolitan country.

Iceland has shown a surprising propensity to churn out entertainment talent — hyphenate Bjork, of course, but also figures like the rising Hollywood director Baltasar Kormakur (he directed the thriller “Jar City” and recently wrapped 26 Films’ Sam Shepard-Diane Kruger drama “Run for Her Life”) and hipster band Sigur Ros (whose songs have featured in numerous films, with Cameron Crowe using four in the Vanilla Skye soundtrack; we defy you not to like this). That all comes out of a country of fewer than 300,00 people, which is kind of the equivalent of it coming out of Bakersfield, or Newark.

The country itself has had a Hollywood role, too. Diverse landscapes, a lack of people (and regulations) and a rebate in the mid-teens have made the small island just east of Greenland an unlikely favorite of production managers. Eastwood filmed parts of “Flags of our Fathers” here. Nolan shot scenes of “Batman Begins” in the place. And a number of Bond movies have also called it home.

But before we go too Chamber of Commerce on you, there are some other thoughts that emerged from our trip — ones that have less to do with how the place has intersected with Hollywood than what the country shows about the prospects for a globalized Hollywood.

On its face, Iceland is the perfect target for all kinds of studio activity. It has a wildly high rate of English proficiency. It has the kind of weather and daylight conducive to moviegoing. It has a knowledgable film community (in its five years, the Reykjavik Film Festival, which takes place next month, has become an important stop on the fest circuit). There are more movie theaters per capita in Reykjavik that nearly another European capital.

And yet Hollywood faces plenty of obstacles in doing business in a country like this. Real-estate in Reykjavik has priced out the older downtown theaters and forced moviegoing to the suburbs, cutting out a piece of the audience. Comedy of course doesn’t always translate even in English-speaking places; there were posters for Tropic Thunder at multiplexes around the city but the locals seemed oblivious. A lack of chain stores has made DVD sales tricky (many movies are sold at gas-station convenience stores). And local production, which has ridden an indie boom over the last few years, has siphoned off moviegoers.

Of course, studios like Sony and Warners are building up their infrastructure for local-language productions overseas. But with the population of a country like Iceland as small as it is, it may be more effort than it’s worth.

Indeed, what the country may show — call it the Iceland Principle — is that for all the temptng factors and global ambitions, there may be some places Hollywood just can’t reach. And judging by how those places are doing without Hollywood, that may be just fine.